Latest Lessons

Regarded as one of the greatest guitarists of all time, Delta blues wizard Robert Johnson recorded only 29 songs (plus 13 alternate takes, in two sessions) during his 27 years of life. They were cut when he wasn’t playing for tips on street corners, in juke joints or in front of barbershops and other commercial establishments.

As many readers begin to dig deeper into learning jazz guitar harmony and voicings, you will undoubtedly come across various 9th chords, Maj9, m9, 9 etc., in your jazz-guitar explorations. Since these chords pop up time and again, it is important to have a variety of 9th chords under your fingers so that you can bring them into your comping, chord melody and chord soloing ideas when needed.

With the release of Ozzy Osbourne’s No Rest for the Wicked in 1988, a sound was unleashed on the world that changed the lexicon of rock guitar and redefined the meaning of “Guitar God." Plucked from anonymity in Jackson, New Jersey, at age 20, Zakk Wylde (formerly Jeff Wielandt) forged a new path of style, personality and tone that continues to grow and evolve to this day.

While mixolydian, diminished, Lydian dominant and the altered scale are all fairly common choices when playing over 7th chords in various situations, there is one scale that is often overlooked, but that can add a freshness to your lines and take your playing in new directions at the same time.

What happens when you mix bluesy, Robert Johnson–style fingerpicking and tropical “Calypso” grooves, with repertoire consisting of spiritual hymns and sea shanties sung by a gruff-voiced, scat-singing, foot-stomping stonemason? You get the inimitable Joseph Spence (1910–1984)

While learning chord shapes is important, studying classic jazz guitar chord lines is the next step in turning these chord shapes into music. In this lesson you’ll study three essential jazz guitar chord soloing lines that will bridge the gap between your study of chord shapes and applying those shapes to a real, musical situation.

As useful as sweep picking can be for playing an ascending or descending arpeggio over a single chord, developing the ability to seamlessly transition from one arpeggio shape to another within a lead phrase will greatly aid in one’s complete understanding and ultimate mastery of the technique.

Take any number of great players and ask them what the process was like, and chances are slim that you'll get any two who will tell you the same story. However, I would say there's a process or structure to learning the instrument. Just like with piano, there are foundational aspects of the instrument that we need to understand, which we then build on and develop as time goes on.

Hello, and welcome to my new Guitar World column! For this first entry, I’d like to discuss the way in which I approach using chords in conjunction with single notes in the formation of many of the riffs and guitar parts I write for Periphery and Haunted Shores.